The present invention relates to a technique of managing annotation data for electronic documents on a network. More specifically, the present invention relates to a technique that enables teachers and students to share and annotate a learning material in the form of electronic document.
Several Japanese patent applications have been laid open which deal with methods of making annotations on electronic documents, and there are also a few commercially available services for annotating electronic documents. See Patent Document 1, Non-patent Document 1, for example.
Such prior art techniques are designed to either share or monopolize information annotated and does not have a function to simultaneously display an electronic sticky note to be shared and one not to be shared, making them lacking in features for e-learning which involves communications with others.
Meanwhile, attempts have been made in e-learning and review uses, where the present invention can be utilized, to improve learning effects and brush up learning materials by annotating electronic documents. For instance, a document managing device with which review members comment (annotate) on an electronic document in reviewing the document (see Patent Document 2) and a method and system for compiling a group learning material which have a function of enabling learners to make simple annotations on learning materials (see Patent Document 3) have been proposed.
The techniques disclosed in Patent Documents 1 through 4 below are examples of prior art related to the invention of this application.
[Patent document 1] JP 2002-108897 A
[Patent document 2] JP 6-274493 A
[Patent document 3] JP 10-214022 A
[Patent document 4] JP 2001-228789 A
[Patent document 5] JP 2002-132129 A
[Patent document 6] JP 2002-132131 A
[Patent document 7] JP 2002-132965 A
[Patent document 8] JP 8-235231 A
[Patent document 9] JP 9-231040 A
[Non-Patent document 1] Internet Sticky Note Papers Research Institute for System Science, NTT Data Corporation, search date Mar. 1, 2004.    http://www.riss-net.jp/edemo/yachiyo.html